Please, do NOT force your toddler to hold the pencil the way a school child does, with 3 fingers on the pencil â you may do more harm than good. It is very hard to âunlearnâ a poor pencil grip later in life! Each stage of holding a pencil or crayon is dependent on how âsteadyâ the shoulder and arm muscles are.
In the equation of a straight line (when the equation is written as  y = mx + b ), the slope is the number  m  that is multiplied on the x, and  b  is the y-intercept, where the line crosses the y-axis.
b is the slope of the line. Slope means that a unit change in x, the independent variable will result in a change in y by the amount of b. slope = change in y/change in x = rise/run. Slope shows both steepness and direction. With positive slope the line moves upward when going from left to right. With negative slope the line moves down when going from left to right. If two linear functions have the same slope they are parallel.